Tag: test

• The Goldfish’s Bad Rap

  A team of researchers at the University of Oxford has found via experimentation that goldfish use markings on the floor below them to measure how far they have traveled. The study disproves the long-held belief goldfish have little or no memory. Anthony and Jeff talk about what this means for goldfish reputations, worldwide, and other animals who fight with unfair stigmas. [more]

  December 30, 2022Episodes

• Throwing Stuff into Space

  Burning tons of jet fuel to propel objects out of Earth's atmosphere and into orbit is an expensive, environmentally damage prospect. One company in California is deleoping an alternative. SpinLaunch just completed their 10th test launch, literally throwing satellites thousands of kilometers up into the air. Jeff and Anthony dig into the engineering challenges - and pure audacity - of such an endeavor... and they come away very impressed. [more]

  October 28, 2022Episodes

• Rice Guys Finish Last

  How you behave in Starbucks may reveal something about whether your ancestors grew wheat or rice. That’s the conclusion of a new study in China, which finds that people descended from wheat farmers—who largely rely on themselves—typically drink coffee alone, whereas descendants of rice growers—who must work with their community to build complex irrigation fields—tend to sip in groups. Jeff and Anthony wonder where Pumpkin Spice Latte drinkers came from. [more]

  May 30, 2018Episodes

• Special Aged

  It's pretty extraordinary for people in their 80s and 90s to keep the same sharp memory as someone several decades younger, and now scientists are peeking into the brains of these "superagers" to uncover their secret. The work is the flip side of the disappointing hunt for new drugs to fight or prevent Alzheimer's disease. Parts of the brain shrink with age, one of the reasons why most people experience a gradual slowing of at least some types of memory late in life, even if they avoid diseases like Alzheimer's. But it turns out that superagers' brains aren't shrinking nearly as fast as their peers'. And autopsies of the first superagers to die during the study show they harbour a lot more of a special kind of nerve cell in a deep brain region that's important for attention. Jeff and Anthony remember to try and stay on topic. [more]

  March 12, 2018Episodes

• Big Skittle Lies

  Do gummy bears really come in different flavors, or do we just think they taste different because they are different colors? While closing your eyes, your accuracy in differentiating flavors majorly declines. This phenomenon is something that scientists are studying- and something big candy companies have counted on for years. Jeff and Anthony investigate to see just how deep the gummy worm hole really goes. [more]

  January 19, 2018Episodes